Frozen Petals in a World of Color
by rebel of the heart
Summary: An object that no one has ever bothered to look at and has been glossed over by many, can be another person's joy. These objects can change lives, and in doing so can make each memory a painful but pleasure filled ordeal.


Disclaimer: I do not own Cedric Diggory what so ever, seeing as J.K. Rowling is the true owner.

A long time ago, on a warm day with the sun shining high in the sky, brilliant and majestic in every way, a six year old Cedric was closely peering over a yellow tulip, eyes wide with wonder and awe. To think that a tulip, a measly muggle plant, could make a little boy excited, was a little hilarious. Cedric, however, didn't care one bit, because this flower wasn't biting or snapping at people like he had seen other plants and flowers do. He poked and prodded the flower, but alas it just swayed slightly, due to the fact that Cedric touched it, not because it suddenly sprouted teeth and tried to eat him. He just wanted to know why this one wasn't moving.

After a long while of just sitting there trying to come up with an answer, he finally realized that this was probably a muggle plant. It, like other muggle things, couldn't move and make noise and talk like magical objects could. It was how it was, and the little boy left it at that.

But Cedric couldn't leave the flower alone. He didn't prod at it anymore because he didn't want to see it fall over; that would make him sad. The more he looked at it, the more he thought it was something pretty and not something to be curious about. But the more he sat there, the more his hands started to itch to do something. Before he left to go and get his toy broom, he suddenly had an idea.

With one look back at the flower to make sure it wasn't just his imagination, the little boy sprang up and ran back inside his house to go and search for what he wanted. He ran past his mother, who was in the kitchen probably cooking or something like that, even if she could have used a house elf. But no, his mother was independent and she didn't believe in house elves, so she did everything by herself. He ran all the way upstairs and didn't stop until he ran into his room and started searching under his bed, in his drawers, and in any place he could have put the little color sticks his mother bought him three years ago when they went into the Muggle side of town. Even his mother had no idea what they were for, but she bought them because they were a way for him to learn his colors.

He knew he put them somewhere in here, they had to be. As he went back to check underneath his bed, he felt something box-like and grabbed it. It was a red, medium sized shoe box, graying with age and dust. He opened the box and saw old trinkets and souvenirs his dad had gotten him from vacation trips, and trips that were Ministry related. All of them were muggle. There was a golden pin with a funny design on it, a little bit of muggle money, some writing implements, and something that muggles called marbles. But at the bottom of the box, he saw something multicolored and pulled it out. It was the color sticks.

With a large grin, he put the box on the bed and dashed out of the room and back outside to the flower. Cedric didn't just simply fall right in front of the flower, with a demeanor that was severely lacking grace. No, he took his time, looking closely for the perfect place to sit. He found it where the sun was shining directly on one curled yellow petal, and covered the rest of the flower and the area around it in shadow. With an air of excitement, he opened the box of coloring sticks and poured all of them out in front of him. He sifted through them until he found the one he wanted, the yellow one. He didn't even know what to do with it, but decided to put the stick to the paper and see what would happen. When he saw that the color of the stick was appearing on the paper, he slowly drew more.

His arms moved so slowly that to an onlooker it didn't seem like he moved at all. His face was pensive and stone-like as he concentrated on the task before him. Not once did he look around to see if anyone was watching, or move his head when he heard an interesting noise.

He didn't even hear his mother calling him; he was so caught up in his little world that consisted of only him and his flower. His mother just stared out the kitchen window at her son who seemed to be concentrating on a muggle flower that she planted a few weeks ago. She couldn't understand why it captured so much attention from him and was about to retrieve the boy for lunch, but then decided against it. The boy seemed happy. She set a portion of lunch aside for Cedric so he could eat it later, once he was finished with whatever he was doing. She took one more glance outside before sitting at the table and eating her lunch alone.

And with everything said and done, Cedric had drawn his first piece of art: a yellow flower and green stem in the middle of the white parchment paper, nothing else. It seemed like such a childish drawing, but if one looked closely, that one flower held so much more expression and feeling than any adult muggle artist could ever express. When he was finished and happy with what he drew, the spell was broken and he folded up the picture and stuffed it in his pocket. He cleaned up all the coloring sticks and walked back inside to have the lunch he had forgotten earlier.

Later that evening before he went to bed, Cedric took the folded piece of parchment from his pocket and used muggle tape to plaster the picture on his wall near the window. Taking one last glance at the small sketchy and childish flower, he went to sleep with a smile on his face.

His mother just smiled from the doorway before she walked to her own room to read more of that interesting muggle novel she picked up a few years back.

As Cedric grew, the flower wilted and gone, Quidditch became a main focus for him, along with his dreams of becoming something great someday. His father had even more dreams for him, but Cedric liked to keep things simple. He still managed to find time for drawing, but didn't like to make a big deal of his talent, and stored his art in leather-bound books that piled up underneath his bed. He knew that nothing will ever come of his art; he would never have a job in that field.

Over the years he found new meaning for why he drew things and what they meant to him, or how they had a strong standing close to his heart. Even so, his very first drawing sat lifeless on the wall, dwarfed by the Quidditch posters all over his bedroom.

Only sometimes, times few and far between, Cedric would hazard a look at the fraying picture, stained with time. It somehow managed to expose the most painful emotions in Cedric, as he remembered lost dreams and lost remnants of youth. That was why he drew it in the first place; he liked to remember the moment he became open to the artistic world at his fingertips.

He was just too young to know it back then


End file.
